Flipping the Tarot cards correctly – Horizontally or Vertically?

When you start reading reversed tarot cards, you most likely soon have a question in your head: which way should I flip the tarot card? 

Tarot cards should be flipped from side to side to not change the tarot card’s original orientation during the turn. This is especially relevant when reading reversed tarot cards. Flipping the tarot card vertically from the bottom up will result in a different reading outcome than was initially intended. 

When I started with the Tarot, I will admit that I tended to flip the cards vertically and didn’t think too much about it. When I began reading inverted cards, I first realized that it makes a difference in how I flip the cards. It got me thinking, what if I am reading for someone else. After I have allowed them to shuffle the deck and choose the cards. Am I interfering with how the Tarot’s message was initially intended if I go ahead and flip them the wrong way? 

What is the right way to flip tarot cards?

This question doesn’t seem that trivial if you don’t read reversals cards. Many tarot readers prefer not to read them for various reasons. Some believe it interferes with the flow of the reading or that they make the reading too negative. In my experience, that doesn’t have to be. 

Reading reversals is actually much more comfortable than many people think. If you are hesitant with them, you should read my article on how to read reversed tarot cards. You will learn that there are many ways to interpret them, and I hope it convinces you to give it a try. 

When and if you do decide to incorporate the reversals into your reading, flipping the cards becomes a more serious matter. I mean, not THAT serious. Nothing should be taken too seriously when reading the Tarot. But it becomes something that you should at least think about.

Most tarot readers would agree that even though the Tarot doesn’t have many things that have the correct ways of doing, flipping your cards is one thing. This is because the way you choose to turn your cards impacts the cards’ orientation, which will then affect the whole outcome of the reading. This is the primary reason why you should concentrate on how you turn the cards. 

The correct way is to flip the cards horizontally from side to side. It is as if you were turning a page in a book. Grab the card from either side and rotate it horizontally around its axis. The card will remain in its original orientation, and you are not interfering with the original message of the Tarot. 

Let’s highlight this by looking at a simple example. Suppose I am doing a simple past-present-future reading with reversals to contemplate my current desires and how I should move on. On the first one, I will flip the cards correctly from the side. Let’s see what we got. 

• PAST: The Emperor upright is the manly man who has a logical approach to every decision. Being in the past position tells me that some choices I have made or experience in my past were not based on emotion, but logic.
• PRESENT: The Ace of Wands in the present position tells me that the current state I am in is filled with creative energy.
• FUTURE: Then, we have the Devil reversed in the future position. Scary. I am exploring dark thoughts. I’ve learned that this card appears when you are about to have a breakthrough. It tells me that I will need to deal with my past before I can allow myself free.

In this spread, I got the feeling that the Tarot is telling me that some of the decisions I have made in the past are not entirely been the ones that my heart would have wanted. Maybe I have been pleasing others and reasoning the choices I made logically rather than trusting my gut. I have a lot of creative energy now, and I would like to do the things I want, but I have to come to terms with my past and realize what I really want to do. 

This one sounded pretty spot on to me. Now let’s see what would have happened if we had flipped the cards vertically. 

• The Emperor reversed means domination, inflexibility, and lack of organization. These are the forces that have been in my past.
• The Ace of Wands reversed represents that the present moment is lacking direction. Some distractions are causing delays or preventing me from empowering my emerging ideas.
• The Devil upright is representing negative habits that are holding me back. Addiction, negative thoughts, or dependencies are not allowing me to be the best version of myself.

In this reading, we have the Emperor in the past position. Either within myself or someone in my life has been dominant, and I haven’t had the discipline that I would have expected. The Ace of Wands tells me that even though I have some emerging ideas in the present, I don’t have a direction to take them anywhere. I haven’t defined my goals and decided where I want to go. And if I continue on this road, the Devil upright in the future position tells me that negativity will continue to hold me back if I don’t make any changes. To be the best version of myself, I need to contemplate the principles I live by. 

These readings were pretty different, don’t you think? 

The first resonated for me a lot more than the other. There is some truth to that particular reading, and I am chewing on the message with positivity. The second sounded dark and pessimistic. I don’t know if I would have found so much to contemplate with it, even if I wasn’t biased against how we flipped the cards on this one. 

Anyhow, I feel that the first worked better for me today. And being that we flipped the cards correctly on that one, I believe that this is the message which Tarot wanted me to know today. 

Don’t worry about it if you have been turning the cards “the wrong way.” Just try to concentrate on the flipping next time you are reading the Tarot. I personally feel that it is almost natural to flip the cards vertically. For me, in the beginning, it felt natural to grab the top or bottom end of the card and just flipped it vertically around its axis without thinking about it too much. 

I don’t know where that comes from, but if you observe casino dealers at blackjack tables, I would say that 100% of them flip the cards vertically. But then again, they don’t have to worry about reversed cards because regular playing cards are identical no matter which way you turn them.

Also, some tarot decks like the Thoth tarot and Osho tarot don’t have reverse meanings, so this is not a relevant matter when you are using those decks. Also, if you want to read the Tarot by using a deck of regular playing cards, there are no reversals. If you are interested in learning how to use playing cards to read the Tarot, check the earlier article, I wrote on that subject here. 

At the end of the day, I think being a reader is about giving the person you are doing the reading to some valid information they can use. It’s about waking up their own intuition and allowing them to see with clarity the things they desire and the choices they need to make.